What Campus Life?

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Delta State students are missing out on events and clubs on campus because they are generally unaware of where to find notices and details for activities and groups that interest them.

When asked about how they find information, students say they rely mostly on word of mouth and friends to inform them of the goings-on of Delta State University (DSU). They also reply, “I look at the posters and fliers” or “I hear about most things from friends.”

Students getting information from friends and posters do get some details of what is happening on campus, but not all of them. Because of this, a majority of students said they were missing out on events.

Many students are okay with missing out on campus events since most of the students said that the campus events they miss are uninteresting to them. Events that are interesting to students are commonly what they most hear about by word of mouth–if not the only thing they hear about.

What most students don’t realize is that the school provides a plentiful amount of information. The DSU website utilizes a calendar that includes most events that are going to happen on campus. DSU also has social media accounts with Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram where updates are posted.

All of these sources of information are easily accessible, but most don’t look at the website other than when they check their email. Even then, the university sends out emails that give details about the events of the upcoming week that go largely ignored.

Most students delete the emails before reading them because they don’t know what they are or because they don’t relate to their classes. Students see the emails that build up in their inbox over the week and regard them more as spam than the wealth of information that they could be.

There are many clubs on campus, but often they go unheard of. Junior Chris Kalil said that he “doesn’t hear about anything” when it comes to clubs on campus. It was the same for most of the students asked. Posters are sometimes put up to announce a first meeting, but otherwise, clubs go widely untalked about.

The DSU website has a page where students can look up clubs and organizations, but most of the ones listed are the more well known clubs and groups on campus. The smaller groups are not listed and, therefore, not given attention by students. DSU offers some services that alert you of sporting events going on, but only athletes are signed up for it as it is sent out by their athletic advisor.

Other universities give out their information differently. At Clemson, University of Illinois and Ole Miss, the students are encouraged to also follow the school on social media much like DSU. The only difference in these three schools is they post on their accounts every day.

Other schools have emails sent to each student, but not just to the school email–students’ personal email also receives announcements. Madison Melton from Ole Miss says that she “always knows what is going on because the email goes right to [her] personal. [She] can see it from [her] phone.”

If DSU gave opportunities to find out information the way these universities do, there would be more of a student life. “I feel very informed and I always know when something is going on, especially from the snap stories,” said Leon Small from University of Illinois.

DSU students tend to feel uninformed from our social media pages. “I personally don’t think DSU uses social media very well as a way to let people know about the few events that happen over the year. I believe that if they posted on Instagram, Twitter or Snapchat stories, students would be more aware and involved,” said Yuri Laguna, DSU Senior.

Greek Life at these bigger universities also uses social media and email to spread the word about not only their sorority and fraternity events, but also about events on campus in general.

“I have been in a fraternity for over a year now,” says Clemson sophomore Stephen Gerrits, “Our Greek life is always well-informed because of the Panhellenic who notifies executive members of each Greek organization about upcoming events.”

The best way to spread news is using the classic posters. When the posters are up, you know something is going on. Pig Pickin’ every year is posted all around campus, but other than that, the amount of flyers and posters are scarce throughout the year.